Aira didn't speak for a long time after she returned from the memory.
She sat on the edge of her bed, the room still cloaked in moonlight, her hands cold and stiff in her lap. The vision of Eiran—his touch, his kiss, the sound of his voice begging her to stay—clung to her skin like invisible chains.
But she had come back.
Barely.
Kael entered quietly. She didn't even hear the door open. He knelt in front of her, a towel in one hand, the other brushing her hair gently away from her face.
"You disappeared for almost twenty minutes."
His voice was calm, but the pain in his eyes betrayed his fear.
"I tried to come back. I didn't want to stay." Her voice was hoarse, almost fragile.
"I felt the shift in your presence. Sareth said if it had been a few seconds longer…"
"I know," she interrupted softly. "I know."
He cupped her face, and for a moment, she allowed herself to melt into the warmth of his touch. His thumb brushed the corner of her lip, and she leaned into him, craving something solid. Something real. Kael always felt like the present. Like home.
But guilt wrapped itself around her throat. She had kissed another man. Even if it was a man from another time. Even if it was a man she once loved. Her body didn't care about timelines. It remembered too much.
Kael didn't ask what happened in the memory. Maybe he already knew. Maybe he didn't want to know.
Instead, he pressed his forehead to hers, his voice barely above a whisper.
"Stay with me tonight. Don't dream. Just breathe."
She nodded.
But even as she lay in his arms that night, even as he pulled her close and kissed her shoulder with the softest reverence, Aira could feel something shifting beneath the surface. A string being pulled tighter. A past unraveling in slow, deliberate knots.
The next morning, Sareth summoned them to the northern ruins.
Aira dressed in silence. Kael tried to keep the atmosphere light, cracking dry jokes as he fastened his belt, but the weight between them had grown thicker. Not resentment. Just silence. The kind that held questions neither wanted to voice yet.
When they reached the ruins, Sareth was already brushing dirt from a massive slab of stone, half-buried in moss.
"I found something buried beneath the oldest altar," he said, eyes gleaming behind dust-covered lenses. "I think it's part of the original prophecy."
Aira stepped closer. Her skin tingled.
The runes were glowing faintly, though no one touched them yet. As her fingers hovered inches above the surface, they began to shimmer—a sign they recognized her blood.
"They react to her," Sareth said in awe. "Not just to her shaman ability—but to her soul lineage."
Aira didn't answer. Her eyes were already scanning the inscriptions.
A name appeared. Lirien.
A memory from a thousand years ago unfurled behind her eyes.
And then, a second name followed.
Zareth.
Not Eiran.
Not Kael.
Zareth.
She stumbled backward. The name struck something deep in her chest, something that pulsed like an echo from a life she hadn't yet remembered.
Kael caught her by the waist. "What is it? Do you know that name?"
"I don't know," she whispered. "But I think I will."
Sareth touched the edges of the stone. "Zareth was the rival heir. The one who tried to reverse the curse. Legend says he failed, but if he was involved with Lirien…"
Aira's hands curled into fists. Another name. Another man.
Another thread in a web she hadn't seen until now.
That evening, Aira returned to the lake, the one near the ancient willow tree where she had first touched a memory and seen Eiran clearly.
This time, she came alone.
The moon cast its silver trail across the rippling water. Her reflection stared back, no longer that of a simple girl burdened with a strange power. She looked older now. Sharper. Touched by too many lives.
She knelt and dipped her fingers into the water.
The memory struck instantly.
The lake turned dark.
And a voice echoed—not Eiran's.
You always ran to him, Lirien. But I was the one who bled for you.
A figure stepped from the shadows beneath the willow. Tall, with dark auburn hair tied at his nape and eyes that burned with quiet wrath. He wore armor unlike Eiran's. Not regal, but primal. Ancient.
Zareth.
She felt the name bloom in her mind like a forgotten song.
"Who are you?" she asked, her voice trembling.
"I am the one you sealed away, along with him. Two kings. One curse."
"You were lovers?" she asked before thinking.
He smirked, though his eyes held centuries of pain.
"Once. We were everything. Before the crown. Before the betrayal. Before Eiran."
Aira's breath caught.
The triangle hadn't just existed in her time. It had always been there.
Three souls. One broken fate.
Zareth stepped forward. He didn't touch her, but she could feel the heat radiating from him.
"You're waking the memory too fast. The curse is unraveling. If you're not careful, the past will consume you."
"I need answers."
"No," he said, voice low. "You need to choose."
Aira looked up at him.
Zareth wasn't like Eiran. He wasn't soft. He wasn't tender. He was fire buried in stone, a storm waiting to erupt.
But something in her stirred. Recognition. A pull.
She stepped back, the memory beginning to dissolve.
"I'm not ready to choose."
Zareth's final words chased her back into the waking world.
You already did once. And you chose wrong.